This is the story of my nontraditional transformation from a Physics/Spanish/Chemistry/Math grad into a physician. I'm a proud member of the class of 2016 at Michigan State University's College of Human Medicine. The blog title will be edited to reflect the current stage of my transformation: Pre-Medical, Medical, Residential, then Doctoral. Read more about me in the My Story tab below. Enjoy!

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Monday, June 30, 2014

MS3 - Orientation - Day 1

Today saw the official beginning of Third Year. I'm (un)officially a third-year med student. Why the (un)? Because we don't actually get our Step 1 scores back until ~10 days from now, and we're not technically allowed to be MS3s until we pass that bugger.

However, barring disaster, I'm an MS3, as evidenced by the new (de-identified) hospital badge and pager. That's right folks - we still use pagers.

Granted, the practical rationale for pagers is pretty strong: cell signal = unreliable in big hospitals but pager function = good .: we use pagers. Pretty sure Wife already hates the idea of a pager. One more way in which med school trumps regular life. Case in point - the phrase "Your time is no longer your own" was used several times during today's orientation...

Speaking of which - Today's Orientation Schedule:

7:30am - Check-in and Continental Breakfast
7:45am-8:45am - Welcome and introduction to staff
8:45am - 9:00am - Intro to the building and operations by Security
9:00am - 10:00am - Professionalism. Apparently stuff gets REAL in Block III.
10:00am - 12:00pm - Fitting for respiratory suit masks for when we interact with quarantined patients.
12:00pm - 1:00pm - Full Hour LUNCH! PROVIDED = Yesssss.
1:00pm - 1:20pm - Pre-recorded Camtasia video by the Dean about being a virtuous physician. People be respectin' and we gotta be worthy of it, yo.
1:30pm - 3:30pm - Orientation Part 1, wherein we learned all the intricacies of the grading system and how important it is to never miss a day of clinical rotations. Suspension = My Eternal Fear.
3:30pm - 4:30pm - How To Properly Present The Patient You Just Evaluated.
4:30pm - 7:00pm - Block III BBQ and Surprisingly Fun Games with Prizes

In summary (because I just spent WAY too long on the North Carolina Vacation post, as was necessary to do it even half-justice), assuming all the material we covered was 100% necessary, it was an incredibly well-done day or orientation. We've got three more packed days planned for this week, wherein I will learn from the wisdom of the students 1 year ahead of me, meet my first clerkship director (Obstetrics & Gynecology!), tour some killer (figurative, people) hospitals, learn about "risk management" (which instantly makes me think of this clip of Ted from Scrubs - skip to 0:21), how to control infections (WASH YOUR HANDS), use new computer programs, suture people, and much, much more.

I'm going to try to put up a quick post each day about orientation, but I might just decide not to. We'll see how these next few days stack up against today.